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U.S., Philippine Navies Train Amid China Tensions

6/27/2014 2:05AM

Amid South China Sea tensions, the U.S. and Philippine navies performed joint combat drills near Scarborough Shoal, which is claimed by both Manila and Beijing. The WSJ’s Ramy Inocencio speaks to Scott Harold, East Asian security specialist at the Rand Corporation.

This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.

... I ... U S and Philippine eighties kicked off Jordy combat drills in the South China Sea this week as territorial tensions with China ... continued to simmer bots ... what can the Philippines really do if confronted by China's military ... Iranian Senseo for Asia Today joining me from Washington DC is Scott peril political scientists of the Rand Corporation ... and an expert on East Asian security now Scott ... is a confrontation between China and the Philippines ever did flare up ... how would that really play out and wouldn't involve U S involvement ... so right now or is it really cleared ... the way in which the United States would be involved the U S of course has a new security treaty with the Philippines they our treaty allies ... but the US has not specified ... that that treaty applies to certain ... I contested rocks and reefs ... I let's ... of course if the Chinese were to attack Philippine ships ... as opposed to simply seizing ... territories that the Philippines claims Discover shoulder so I read ... that would be a different story an attack on the armed forces the Philippines would involve ... the defense treaty of leave so ... for years for the Philippines of course they cannot really stand toe-to-toe with China they did not have ... I fear sophisticated naval platforms or much experience operating in the relatively ... limited platforms that they do have the Chinese would win hands down in the Philippines are not looking to confront China ... and militarily ... now the US and Manila are both saying that's up ... there playing down the exercise is actually up but the thing is the summing that they have to say on record or isn't really because ... China is trying to lay claims all the Zion's and Shoals out there ... I think it's important to remember is that ... the exercise like this ... is something that takes a long time to plan it brings a lot of forces and people will make both machines ... and people up to a region ... from the nine states are from our U S forces in Asia ... and so it's not something is planned overnight ... any exercise you could say was happening against the backdrop ... of China's ... tensions with its neighbors but that doesn't mean that the exercises plan specifically because of the attention now in the case of the Philippines ... they are looking to improve their defenses and to prove their allied cooperation the United States ... because they have systematically underinvested in there that fat ... and dairy having focused so heavily on the internal threat posed by terrorists and answer session ... over the last few decades realizing that China has territorial claims against the areas of the Philippines believes that the bears ... they are now starting to try to rebuild the capacity ... I wanted to pivot from the U S China and the Philippines taking up the Philippines and talking about the U S China relationship ... the Justice week but these drills are happening at the same time as rear Admiral ... Mark Montgomery Pekingese right here u a senior U S Navy official ... says the military ties between the U S and China are actually ... improving albeit modestly do you agree with that ... I would say ... mostly stabilized some small areas of improvement ... um the Chinese are participating in green package gives us a chance to ... try and get some basic standards but again I think the Admiral of the retro try to characterize this as being ... a very modest ... and this is not going to change the overall dynamic in the relationship ... at best it can put ... a bit of a ... floor under the relationship or helped to ... make sure that it's stable at this time ... right in China's involvement in the world's largest multilateral Naval exercises and you just touched on ... is perhaps the one thing pointing to that stabilization or to the potential improvement know what is China's involvement ... this time is its first ... so the Chinese as miners carriers are participating in them some humanitarian ... and disaster relief exercises ... those could include some search and rescue including even some types of search and rescue ... underwater ... for recovery of ... sea change that may have sunk and some color piracy ... capabilities and then just standard kind of ... here's how we operate one when the high seas ... says Ishino first this ... or that civic they all meet up in long them in a sale ... to Hawaii ... and so simply communicating show or dishes or ... but the fact that the Chinese Internet having to ... coordinate with ... and several other nations and ... cooperate on ... some ... standardization issues ... is that they on balance probably a good thing I think that's ... probably not likely to represent ... in any sense of material contribution to their military capabilities ... but it does help them to standardize Ed clear understanding of what we all should be able to do is we need to cooperate ... in two places than an environment where the expectation is ... you're here you're going to play ball with us and here's how we do it ... and as a positive step but of course face-to-face mediation oh is is ... a better thing than its price to ... Scott Harold political scientists at the Rand Corporation and an expert on East Asian affairs thank you so much for joining ...